Enit Festival in NY and LA

From top: Bhakta John, Mayesvara dasa, Krsna Yauvana dasa, Mahanta dasa, Bhakta Kevin, Bhakta Israel, and Jai Govinda (bottom left) man the booth in California.

By Ratna Busana dasa

NEW YORK CITY and LOS ANGELES, USA--Devotees on both coasts of the US catered twin ENIT music festivals last summer and national MTV coverage of the event hailed their food as being “made of love.”

Musician Perry Farrell asked his production manager to enlist ISKCON to distribute prasadam communally as part of the festivals, an all-night affair featuring several types of music. Farrell told MTV viewers he sought the Krishnas “because they bless their food with love, and when you eat the food you experience that love.”

On August 17 devotees fed an estimated crowd of 7,000 concert-goers prasadam in Holmdel, New Jersey, at the former Garden State Performing Arts Center, an outdoor venue. Devotees offered preparations to poster-size photographs of Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Radha-Govinda to the sound of drums played by musicians in a circle. Fifty devotees, headed by Sunanda dasa and Shanki dasa, cooked the feast at the concert site and distributed it from two booths for eight hours.

One week later devotees catered the festival at Snow Valley Ski Resort 100 miles from Los Angeles. The West Coast devotees distributed 3,500 plates of prasadam with another feast prepared on site. Music lovers purchased Srila Prabhupada’s books at the rate of one every three minutes from the time the festival began at 5:30 pm to the conclusion of the devotee’s participation at 1 am.